Voskresenie
by Zaedah
Summary: Disbelief in gods in no way means he shouldn’t be petrified of them.
1. Chapter 1

**_In 'Complexities in the Mundane,' I mention Peter's travel bag, which was given to him by an old woman in Russia. Piratesmiley requested the story behind that and thus was born a three chapter story. As with any tale, we shall begin at the beginning..._**

* * *

**Voskresenie**

_Verkhoturye,__ Russia… 1999_

The word, a tripping mass of malicious consonants, refuses to leave his mouth, clinging to his tongue like a drunk clutching a bottle. It's disconcerting, the sensation of verbal stumbling and the grins of an amused audience aid nothing. A quick study, Peter Bishop figures it will take another week to achieve passable conversation in this guttural language. For now, the man wielding four days of practical application needs only an eager camera to polish the tourist image.

Ekaterinburg had felt a bit like Boston, old architecture mingling with the airs of a mobile society. Earlier he'd landed in a modern airport, greeted by attractive clerks and an English-speaking cabby. His temporary tour guide dropped him off at a contemporary train station, containing a restaurant and gallery on the upper deck. Riding the rails to his destination would consume several hours and when he finally arrived in Verkhoturye, any concept of mobile society died.

And he still can't say the damned word.

As night paints the under-industrialized town in a somber stroke, nearly improving on the worn colors that day provided, Peter stands among guarded strangers. He's waiting, following the mood of the place because while his cautious pronunciation labels him a traveler, his interests raise suspicion. It's polar cold and his body, so recently lathered in radiant sun, protests every inhalation of this frigid atmosphere.

The warmth of France is more than weather.

Three days removed from an extended job in a city so bold as to tilt toward garish, Peter had arrived in this time warp locale to hunt for a man with a large debt and a severe face. Not unlike many patrons of this drinking establishment. Even the women are roughhewn, resembling the peasants in every Flemish painting he's ever quoted to impress a girl. The men chuckle at the American's halting inquiries and the sound, born of cigarettes and government oppression, is five miles from pleasing. Despite a scant few days speed reading a battered English to Russian dictionary, Peter knows enough to judge his chances of leaving this bar with information. He's more likely to be tossed after they administer souvenir black eyes and break something vital.

Fortunately, they're a people starving for charm.

A scraggly trio of teenagers, barely out of school and already laid off from the mine, grow rowdy in the corner, their aim at the dart board suggesting they've been here the better part of all blessed day. As the volume increases, nearby table are bumped, several drinks losing precious drops and the collective temper simmers to a perilous boil. Peter doesn't mind the pimply rabble since they've taken the general focus off himself. They're lanky kids, a listless bunch with easy motives that Peter recognizes in every decision he's ever made. When the barkeep, a bearded man burdened by boulder-thick biceps, approaches the ruckus, Peter quickly rises and puts up a surrendering hand. Summons the appropriate smile. Wills the stalking mountain to cooperate.

When the lads look to the angry mass halted by the insignificant American, Peter points to his table, making a circle gesture he hopes they'll take as an invitation. Failing to arrive at clear understanding, Peter resorts to the capitalism for which the states are bashed. A wad of bills is pulled from a concealed inner pocket and laid on the square wood slab. Snared in an instant, three teens toss chairs in the money's vicinity, the stack nearly trembling beneath their heavy, hungry stares. One of the boys has a a deck of cards in his hand. Playing a tourist is the fastest route to free cash, which will be immediately funneled into all the alcohol this place stores. Peter's not worried when the wild-eyed trio falls into age-damaged chairs and licks figurative chops. He hasn't mastered the language but there's no game he can't play.

It's simple to know prey such as this. He's been these boys. He's still these boys. And they're a few hands in before they realize it. That he takes the delinquents' remaining coins earns cagey praise from the spectators, though the smiles aren't so much approving as vindictive. One local, who passed drunk on his way to smashed, slaps Peter on the back in an unpleasant welcome that sends a coughing fit spiraling from Peter's lungs. In Côte d'Argent the victory over nuisances would have garnered a free drink but he's satisfied that knowing mouths open a bit wider for him, delivering tiny hints of the severe man's whereabouts. After several arguments too rushed and loud for Peter to follow, the general consensus is that a gutter a mile out has served as Mirand's most recent housing.

Fishing for vagrants is his least favorite job.

Leaving the nameless shell of a business, Peter crosses the oft-patched roadway and spots the temporary lodging the barkeep suggested. Small quarters, he was warned and when the middle-aged owner swings open the thin door, Peter decides that _small _needs a better translation. Still, he's made homes of less. The transaction consists mostly of clipped attempts at pleasantries and charade-like sign language. But no translation is needed for his new neighbor across the hall.

A scream is universal.

Issuing forth from rusty lungs, the old woman's shriek is amplified by a narrow, empty hall. She backpedals on quivering legs and slams a particle board door shut, the warped blow echoing quite possibly into oblivion. Smiling, the owner's face recedes from pale gums, displaying a cavern of rot meant to comfort the new tenant. Peter is a prize, that much is clear by the flashlight brilliance in the gruff man's eyes. Portioning the money that card trickery had netted, Peter allots the super his due and retreats into the peeling refuge of his room. Even as he cooks an instant meal by the sole functioning burner and settles at a rustic writing table, Peter is troubled by the scream still ricocheting in his ears.

He's stuck in the middle of the Ural mountains at the 'gates of Siberia,' but as night presses on, the chill comes from within.

**……****.**

Two days and three leads later, the shining promise of a hefty reward slips gradually through desperate fingers. Russia is not an ideal place to get stuck. There is, his employer assures him, a glorious future in global bounty hunting for a loner with quick wits and language proficiency. The prospect should be appealing. Except that yet again he wakes in a coffin of a room choking on disorientation. The baseboards haven't worked since Stalin and his sleep-addled brain registers that the sweat encasing him isn't natural. Either he's sick or God fixed the furnace.

Or the building's on fire.

It turns out that heating bread over a series of unstable candles is not, in fact, the safest way to prepare breakfast. The far end of the two-story building suffers the majority of the damage, which might be a measured improvement. Having acquired a hasty remodeling by fire, the owner spits damnation as he throws the book, the furry hat and a wad of aerodynamic pantyhose at the culprit. Shuffling back to his fume-tainted room, Peter wonders if there's any experimental bread left.

Peter and his pocket knife had spent last night dislodging caked grime from the lone window, an uneven square assemblage of old wood and older glass. The cleaning uncovers a decent escape route if broken legs are the goal. Through the glass he peers down upon the loitering residents. The free show that the flames had presented is over but the senior population remains gathered, heads bowed in gossip. It's a reenactment of a boyhood schoolyard. The largest clique surrounds the building's owner, a useful membership that makes late rent more forgivable. But it's the blue haired hens that interest him. The screamer is waiting with the other spindly biddies, widows of war practicing a thrift of resources and energy to be envied.

Maybe it's compassion, a dreadful thing to keep packing into the luggage. Maybe it's admiration for their durability in this environment. Maybe it's their apparent custom of welcoming foreigners with the dulcet tones of a banshee. He's fond of them instantly.

Indulging in people-watching is a hobby that serves his varied professions well. But he's not the only one scrutinizing. The Screamer looks up, her head bobbing skyward like a marionette with loose strings and sets a squinting glance on his second-floor window. Her mouth doesn't open. It doesn't need to. Horror etches deeper lines into skin already marred by crows and the strings are cut, her neck snapping downward in accordance to cruel gravity. A taller woman nearby drapes an arm across the frail shoulders in consolation. Sneaking a look down the front of Screamer's apron, the comforter gently avails herself of the coin she finds there.

A scammer after his own heart.

**……****.**

The coffin will be cramped tonight.

Fire extinguishers aren't common items in the average shop but the benefit to morning rounds is a strolling purveyance of local wares. It is Peter's intention to store a little red device in every corner, easily accessible for the next time someone plays chef with flammables. Increased fluency loosens the tongues of shopkeepers, a hearty group maintaining outdoor sales regardless of snow accumulation. A two hundred year old comrade not only lugs the latest model of stored-pressure canisters from a backroom for the nice young American but points him in the direction of Mirand's acquaintance. By the description, the wanted man's friend is the rough equivalent of a shaved grizzly who lives above a house of accommodation.

A part of Peter, the section of his twenty-four year old brain that regulates his base impulses, cheers at the hint of release he can attain before apprehending the debtor. He's not entirely promiscuous by his estimation but it's been a long week. A phrase book in his hands hardly replaces the slender hands of female companionship.

Exotic locations with stately women is his notion of a glorious future but he'll take the first inoffensive farm girl he can find.

And take her. And take her. And take her.

* * *

_**Voskresenie – Russian for **__****__**r**_esurrection.

_**Chapter two is complete and shall be up soon. Thank you for your kind visit and stay tuned...  
**_


	2. Chapter 2

_Many thanks for the return visit. We voyage ahead on this journey into Peter's past..._

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**Voskresenie**

**2**

_Verkhoturye,__ Russia… 1999_

The hallway outside his door becomes more constricted each time the Peter passes, litter mounting at the edges of the concrete floor. Every step stirs up leftover soot from the small blaze. Clean up has been non-existent as the building's owner is apparently relying on the brisk draft from a broken hall window to push along the entrenched debris. No matter how slowly the door is opened, fragments of discarded life find a way inside.

Peter's own window is filthy again, refusing entrance to moonlight as a thin girl, long of leg and fairer than cream, lays on the wobbly bed and comments on its roominess. At least he thinks that's what she meant when she purrs about impressive size. Her hair is gold spun from inexpensive dye but it feels real in his hands.

Real is a ghost he's always chasing.

The scream she emits over the next hour is something to admire, finer on her tongue than a widow's. Her name is riddled with unnecessary syllables and when he christens her Lucy for the sake of expediency, she laughs in hiccups. Too young for him and possibly not legal in the states. Lucy doesn't allow him to walk her home, a reminder that chivalry is dead, even in the old world. For a moment he's forgotten that her gauge of success is the sum of clients.

The grizzly hadn't stopped at his above-the-brothel residence earlier tonight but Peter had put out word of potential work, assuming by the residence that the man might enjoy ready cash. Carefully flashing the rest of his winnings had pulled the desk clerk's attention away from her fashion magazine. The madam, it turns out and previously profitable in her craft. Peter played the role of a reputable employer in need of brawn and since the madam and her mascara couldn't produce the man he'd come for, she'd given him Lucy for his trouble.

New to the game, the girl is sated before him.

Peter leaves his room after midnight, stirring more than a little debris with the walk of a shackled prisoner. He intends to sit outside the brothel and wait for signs of Mirand. It's a play in patience, a task made difficult by the knowledge that it's a whisker above zero degrees outside and benches aren't known for warmth. Locking the door seems pointless since a decent sneeze would blow the thin slat over but Peter's a slave to habit. Jiggling the handle, he takes four steps down the hall and the Screamer's door cracks open, setting free the odor of boiled carrots. Closing his nostrils to the nausea, he stops and tosses a glance over his shoulder. Sleep-caked eyes peer around the doorframe, suspicious, afraid. Charm, the old fallback, rarely fails and Peter lets his face assemble a smile. Her kerchiefed head slides back as she closes the door without a sound. Something in that accusing stare makes him uncomfortable but he mustn't ponder it.

He'll be paid for making Mirand uncomfortable and the sooner that's accomplished, the faster he can leave Russia and its freezing wind, grimy windows and odd widows behind.

**……****.**

There is a smell in Russia that drifts down from the Ural Mountains and mingles in the village. A ripe scent, like fresh-turned earth and smoldering compost. That the ground has been frozen for weeks by a vengeful winter cannot deter the aroma of farm and field. Of the many things to dislike about an inhospitable land, the aroma is not among them. But only on the right wind. It's a taunt that declares the land will go on even if its people should falter. Pride leaks into the rivers, heritage sprouts from every rugged hill.

Peter is a product of the city where high-rises compete with historic buildings for a crowded skyline. Congestion has its own smell; exhaust fumes, crumbling asphalt and the fraternal twins of brick and steel. Foundations speak to a permanency he wants not in life but will accept in his surroundings. But when he stands on foreign soil, America feels like an upstart he should be apologizing for. And it's hard to miss the land of capitalism and celebrity when immersed in a grey interpretation of Middle Earth.

He can't wait to leave.

The strip isn't Vegas but it's got its own liveliness. The late hour, soaking the scene in rich shades of black, brings out more color in the inhabitants. From the pavement Peter can see outlines through Mirand's third floor window. It's two am and in the last three hours of Peter's vigil there have been no signs of life. Legs are fusing to the wooden bench as a thin layer of frost settles on exposed surfaces. Including him. The eatery on the corner is hosting a funeral party and while the attendants are few, the liquor must be vast. Shades of an Irish wake. Stumbling out the doors at sporadic intervals, the passersby greet Peter with varied degrees of politeness. A monster exits the diner with his fur-lined hat on sideways, an ear flap covering one eye. The impaired vision disrupts his locomotion, sending him tumbling into the working girl striving for decent posture despite wrestling with the uneven sway of the man's bulk.

Like a shaved bear indeed.

Peter's nose is tender, undoubtedly red from its battle with the cold but it's outshined by the smile he has drafted into service. The denim encasing his numb legs is nearly crunchy as he straightens from the bench and heads toward the unfortunate couple.

"I know you?" The grizzly asks in a voice burned by alcohol.

"Only if you want work," Peter tells him, maintaining a disinterest in the young lady who appears desperate to change partners.

"I hear you look for me." The bear grins, a frightful thing. "I here now."

The difficulty in understanding the man isn't born of an especially thick accent, not a lack of English aptitude. Rather it's the manner in which his words are spat past comically fat lips.

"It's a two man job," Peter warns. "Cash after completion to split anyway you decide. You have a friend?"

"Own some," he announces, arms thrown wide to the detriment of his stability. "E'erybody owes me. Maybe you too, eh?"

"Maybe." Peter's grin is no longer forced. Talkative thugs are a favorite because they're easier to predict. "What you I call you?"

The job prospect rubs his wiry whiskers as the thought process works to dissolve the bite of his stupor. His girl gets impatient, which is understandable considering the low temperature and the high skirt.

"Clive. Dat sound gentile, yes? Clive own dis friend dat need job. You like. He a stater too."

"And what are we calling him?"

More thought and more sobering. The hooker chews her nails, determined to stay by Clive's side until the unlikely event that he pays her. Her handbag is pretty but Peter notices an old burgundy stain on one side. Like everything else about her, it seems to be stolen, perhaps straight out of a dead woman's grasp.

"Moses," Clive christens the man Peter hopes is possessed of a severe face.

Taking his new comrade by the arm, Peter leads him toward the brothel, a painstaking trek that includes grand gestures by the tripping man. Halting them outside the main doors, Peter squares his shoulders and looks up into the man's glistening eye, the one not covered by a furry flap.

"Tell me Moses is mean and ugly and you're hired."

"Dat one got devil face for scare de kids, dat one. Ugly like Bojani's mother."

The girl pushes away from the man, yanks open the door and stalks to the counter with enough huff to put out yesterday's fire. She points out the massive offender to the madam, who spots Peter and brushes the girl away. With a sickening slap across the face.

Clive's upstairs accommodations are more palatial than Peter's by the simple fact that the paint is peeling in thin strips instead of poster-sized chunks. The heat from the cast iron radiator is only a few degrees cooler than hell and Peter thinks he made a miscalculation in his housing selection because his teeth have ended their tap dance and there's a bevy of passable women downstairs.

Time for a change of address form.

A home distiller of spirits, Clive brings out jars of pungent liquid and indicates by his own sizable swig that Peter should sample what was mixed in the bathroom. It's a fine use of a steel tub, Clive assures him, though one sip and Peter considers eating the tub to banish the taste. Mirand puts in an appearance just as the sun does, wearing what could best be described as the devil's face and little else. Pockmarks dig into sunken cheeks, giving him all the distinction of a leper. The boxer shorts suggest he's lost his pants and when he mentions a hooker calling herself Lucy, Peter has to cough away the dry heaves. Sitting on the floor, Mirand scrutinizes the fellow American through early cataracts.

"How'd you find me?"

Most criminals know how to play interrogation, gleaning the answers by asking around the subject. But the bright boy with the looming debt skips the formalities in favor of giveaway.

"You walked in?" Peter takes a cautious sip of the disturbing liquid he's been nursing since dusk. "I was looking for Clive, not you. But he's made you part of the package."

"You think I need money?"

"I think you need pants," Peter mumbles into his jar because Mirand's cross-legged position shows why Lucy is likely griping downstairs.

Clive, standing at a large window with shoulders tense enough to crack walnuts, tilts his head just a fraction.

"We want de job, don't we _Moses_?" It's not a question and Mirand wisely lets his silence suffice. Addressing Peter, Clive snaps his fingers. "What's dat saying? Hard to know good help, eh mister?"

When the overheated space has him drinking far more gin than he needs at seven am, Peter heads back to his room. And trips over his high-powered fire extinguisher. Dialing a long series of numbers, his employer is informed of successful contact. Peter runs a hand through his hair, longer now than he prefers and replays the morning in his fogged head.

And then vomits away the phantom taste of a farm girl.


	3. Chapter 3

Because wjobsessed promised a new chapter to her Activated if I post the conclusion to this story, I present the the third and final installment of Peter's Russian excursion...

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**Voskresenie**

**3**

_Verkhoturye,__ Russia… 1999_

He dreams. Most nights the visions of his subconscious are laughable in their muddled representations of his life. Replays of near misses, recollections of a blurred childhood and rehashes of faceless women blend together, seeping into each other through a tampering of chronological order. Memories and fantasies are set on spin cycle and the jumble leaves him confused and occasionally amused. He's fairly sure even he can't kiss four women at once while flying Superman-style through the atmosphere of Mars.

When he was eight he began dreaming of a solitary moment, the whole of its content wrapped around a single figure. A man.

Peter dreams of him still.

When he wakes in a tiny room exhaling frosted breath in a pant, he expects to see the shadowed form looming above him. The specter is as familiar as he is recurrent but the face is never clear, the intentions even less so. As day coughs up a splatter of rays beyond his thrice-scrubbed window, Peter stares at the plastered ceiling and tries yet again to connect a memory to the dream. It's always on the edge of his recall, just outside his understanding.

It's ten am and the lack of rush hour horns still troubles his metropolitan ears.

He's lying on an under-stuffed mattress counting clumped cobwebs when the cell phone vibrates beneath the thin pillow. Cleveland Moore. It's a call one answers with figurative bated breath and literal heartburn. Boxing had left the successful bookie with a disfigured nose, which gifted his voice with a gasping, streaked tone. It's the last thing Peter's vodka-soaked brain wants to process.

"I've got a man on route," Moore tells him in a garbled wheeze. "Name's Carrero. He'll meet up with you tonight outside Mirand's. Show him a good time, huh?"

Peter sits up and squints past a hangover. "I can take care of this myself."

"Sure kid. You did good finding him and getting in the door but…"

"But you think I can't bring him or his money in." Seeing his paycheck divided in half with what is likely a mass of uneducated muscle, Peter rubs his eyes into focus. "Then why send me at all?"

"Carrero can't learn Russian in a week. Punk sure as hell can't follow leads."

And probably can't spell but that's the beauty of brawn.

"It's just business, kid. You said you won't carry a gun so I'm sending a bit of protection." Pause. "Not hearing much in the way of thanks."

Swallowing , Peter dredges up requisite appreciation and lets it sail in the form of, "Gee, didn't know you cared."

"Smart ass. Anyone tell you that?"

With the finality of a dial tone, the course of the day is decided.

Had he a fridge in this closet of a room, Peter would start his day the way he'd ended the previous; drunk. The trouble with accepting a prison cell as voluntary housing is the dismissal of normal luxuries. He's lucky there's a tub and he settles into the cool water that the tab has supplied. Even the largest water heaters can't be expected to overcome the weather and there's no doubt the heaters in this building were installed in the days of Czar Nicholas.

Clean and passably awake, Peter isn't surprised to find a peeking Screamer waiting for his exit. She's difficult to ignore, sticking out a sunken eye as far as nature and the ajar door allows. Perhaps he's let his beard grow a bit but overall he doesn't consider himself so scruffy as to appear criminal. Certainly the lack of a haircut in recent weeks, resulting in unruly waves, lends a more youthful quality that should put shaking old biddies at ease. In any other country, old hands would brave arthritic pain for the pleasure of pinching his cheeks.

This elderly spy is determined to monitor the hall. Locking and checking his door, Peter turns to the particle board separating him from the woman, crosses his arms and waits. Her eyes widen to proportions only Tex Avery could draw, lightly crusted lids unable to bridge the gap to form a blink. Though it may induce a heart attack, he stands in challenge like a caught burglar with eight different means of escape. _Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?_

What kind of person calls an old lady out?

**……****.**

Having exited a staring contest as undisputed victor and found day-old fresh pastries on sale, Peter munches his way through the town square, curiously un-square in the tradition of England's finest circular gardens. Only without flowers, hedge mazes or tourists. He can't be bothered to analyze the incorrect labeling of the village hub.

Apparently the nonverbal abuse of old ladies doesn't disqualify him from enjoying scenery.

The morning is resplendent with actual, honest to loving Creator color, something he's become so unaccustomed to in this monochrome world that his eyes have to adjust to the onslaught. Villagers are wearing florals, stripes and a few leisure suits that he can't summon the disdain to mock. It's too pretty. Too perfect. Complaining would be spitting in the eye of a benevolent deity and Peter doesn't own the kind of luck that can survive a retaliatory onslaught by all-powerful beings. Disbelief in gods in no way means he shouldn't be petrified of them. Pastry devoured, his hands are now free to ball into fists when he spies Mirand and Lucy sipping steaming drinks on the bench outside the brothel. It's not an expectation of faithfulness from a one-night romp that has Peter's tongue clamped painfully between gnashing teeth. It's the visual evidence that he shares the same tastes in innocent-looking backwater women as the gutterbug Mirand.

The things it says about him require vodka to banish.

In the same depressing establishment he'd spilt his first drink in days ago, Peter now cozies up to the boulder-armed bartender and accepts a tall glass of something vaguely brown. House special, he's told in a language no longer brutal to his ears. A deep, trusting gulp of the stuff turns his stomach lining into plastic wrap as the coal-like aftertaste settles around his teeth for a long stay. But the effect, once the nausea passes, is possibly worth the lava churning in his veins. House special loosely translates into slow-killing poison but as such, it's a nice way to go. Fingers feel thick after the second chug and by the third Peter considers starting a karaoke tournament.

He's too numb to mind the stranger sidling up next to him. But not too drunk to miss the stench.

Most manufacturers produce men's cologne to attract women, a sensible tradition dating back some four thousand years when someone in Cyprus thought that people ought to smell a bit less like sweat and swine. As happens in business, others seek to break from the routine and create something so distinctive, they become known as singularly brilliant. The maker of whatever Peter's new companion wears breaks even further with polite custom and crafted a scent so foul, the liquid must need chains to hold it down. The chemical seeks to undo what the nasty drink hath wrought and Peter's good mood vaporizes into the fabled sinking feeling.

"Carrero," the pungent bodybuilder mumbles with the faintest movement of anvil jaw.

Identification isn't necessary. Cleveland Moore hires his brawn from a catalogue that features only one model and an apparently limitless supply thereof. Protocol demands that Peter shake the offered hand, though the gesture is unusual for the transaction they're about to undertake. His hand disappears into the meaty grasp of the Caucasian man with the Hispanic name and there is no comfort in the smallness enveloping him. As the brains of the pair, he should be capable of exerting some power over the nondescript muscle but nothing in the blank stare assures Peter of any recognition of position.

"We should get to Mirand's," Peter announces as he rises. "Make sure he's there for you to mangle."

"He ain't." The voice is too slight for the frame but menace doesn't need a baritone soundtrack. "I got this, Chess. Finish yer drink."

Reclaiming his wobbling chair, Peter stares at the figure beside him. The eyes, like a walrus in slumber, are nearly undetectable on the huge canvas of face while a thick goatee hangs like a skirt from his chin. If Carrero's breathing, it's via some other manner than standard lungs because there's no movement in his chest.

"Chess?"

"Boss likes code names."

Ordering another round, Peter reconsiders his stance on guns. "So, what's the plan? I thought we should give him a fair chance to pay, since broken bones

"S'up to Mirand. He fights, we fight back."

If the use of 'we' is meant to unite, it fails. Morning scurries toward the relative heat of midday and Peter thinks he should stop drinking. Altogether.

"And if he has the money?" Which, granted, is like saying Carrero has a working knowledge of calculus.

"Then we break his legs for running and get outta this damn cold."

The length of tan whiskers, which sits equal to an enormous adam's apple, does not wave as he speaks. It's disconcerting.

Peter sips on the house special and runs through the list of monikers Carrero's type inspires. Notwithstanding the vast vocabulary at his disposal, Peter always comes back to Brick. An hour of silence is broken only by the occasional argument over politics by older men who no longer earn bread for the family, preferring to drink away what passes for pensions in Russia. When Brick stands, he brushes invisible crumbs from his pants and it's rather like he's dismissing the populace at large. Not a fan of debates held in a spitting dialect, Peter supposes.

From the street outside the brothel, a light in Mirand's room can be seen pushing through heavy curtains. The shadow that crosses the room fits Mirand's proportions and based on Peter's nod, the mismatched pair enter the building under the scrutiny of the madame, who winks at Peter while Lucy, standing idle behind the counter, blushes in magnificent technicolor. It could be a compliment but he's too busy trailing a determined mountain to bathe in the glow.

The door, of thicker construction that Peter's shabby version, is no barrier for a man built like a monster truck and his technique for smashing immovable objects reminds Peter of car crushes on television. Mirand is alone and presently jumping out of his skin.

"Tell Moore I'm working on it," Mirand pleads as the pile of muscle moves in his direction. There's no way to dodge it and the man's sole hope lies in the possibility that black holes are frequent in Russia.

Cracking his knuckles like every villain in every action B-movie, Carrero uses his brick fist to slam the smaller man to the ground. He sprawls like a fringed afghan dropped from a helicopter, tangled with flopped limbs and a significant bit of saliva dripping from his nose. Blood is spat from his mouth, which tries with clear discomfort to form words. A considerate man, Carrero pulls out a heavy pistol, a manly device of black and waits.

"Just give me a…" It's garbled and ends abruptly when Mirand sees the gun cocked and pointed.

"Thirty thousand," Carrero reminds the lump of flesh who opts to remain on the floor.

Peter, partially out of pity and mostly to avoid accomplice status, steps forward. "Doesn't have to be this way. You've had months to repay. Tell me you have the money."

Because his blackening eyes say nothing to the affirmative, the gun is leveled. The smile suits Carrero's face, something like a drugged clown with one pie left. When the shot is fired, Peter jolts into the unpleasant reality of streaming blood and the fish-like gasping of a dying man. No one runs upstairs at the sound.

No one cares.

**…….**

Shampoo and liquid soap bottles sprint down the hall ahead of the departing man. The room has been cleared of personal items, sanitized as much as ancient fixtures allow and Peter is locking the door behind him. His backpack is at his feet where he dropped it, the small travel bag having tumbled out of the side compartment, spilling the contents from the mouth of a broken zipper. Leaning down, he collects the escaping items with all the grumbling of a man intending to run faster than his deeds. The previous night had been spent scrubbing off blood that had never physically touched him yet would board the plane with him.

Being watched is no special shock.

However, when the Screamer steps into the hall, fully visible and in no way yelling, Peter registers the astonishing event with an expression he's sure conveys the 'huh?' he's thinking. She's taller than she seems when cowering behind a door and her straight teeth are just beginning to decay. Handing him the fallen bar of soap, she tilts her head toward her apartment in what is either an arthritic tick or an invitation.

Stepping inside her abode, his skin breaks out in goose bumps. In America, retirees congeal toward the warmth of Florida but Russian elderly simply put more blankets on the bed. In a fit of boldness, she takes the useless travel bag from his hands and shakes the remaining contents onto a threadbare sofa. The bag is tossed into a trash bag and Peter holds his backpack tighter against any designs to do the same to his clothes. The musty scent shouldn't be soothing and her approach should be worrying.

But she comes bearing photos.

As no one has ever died from a paper cut, Peter relaxes into a large chair and settles the pictures she's offered onto his lap. Hovering before him, she waits as he flips through yellowed, fragile images of a young woman with straight teeth and a full-wattage smile. And the same necklace the Screamer is fingering. Beyond the pleated skirt and ruffed blouse lives a fine woman who must have beaten off suitors with the single edge shasqua he spots on the wall above her unlit fireplace. Leafing through a few more, Peter stops at a smiling couple at a picnic, standing arm in arm with enough promise to color the washed photo in his mind. The man beside the young Screamer is, by his uniform, a World War II soldier, freshly shaved and gleaming.

A dead ringer for Peter.

"He go to fight," her strained voice explains. "Big war."

"Your husband?"

She sniffs back a flash of emotion. "To marry when come home. No come home." Her tongue clucks in the way old people mastered eons ago to portray disgust. "See you, see Evgeny. Many fright."

A day after watching a man die, Peter finds his deceased twin. In the bar, men talk of sports and industry while a certain sect of women speak on more heavenly matters; sin, redemption and resurrection. Voskresenie.

The Screamer was christened Lada after the Slavic goddess of beauty. She's waited two years for word of a man who'd pledged himself to her before boarding a train. It was her last sight of Evgeny and in his honor, she never rode trains and never married. In what she deemed a curse of the gods, she'd been gifted a long life during which she could mourn her lost love while remaining steadfast in Verkhoturye, waiting as she'd promised. Seeing his doppelganger had been as a ghost sighting, only infinitely more frightening.

Peter kisses her paper mache cheek, swears to be careful on the train and is handed a fabric bag. She'd sown it together years ago but has lacked occasion to employ it. His hygiene products fit nicely inside. He's never purchased souvenirs of his travels, never sought reminders of exotic places outside the stored images in his head. But this, he decides, will serve as a reminder of the tragic events in which he should have had no part.

Debt collection is no place for a man who prefers to talk his way through trouble. Violence is counterproductive, he explains at length to Cleveland Moore through the static of a bad connection. The bookie has neither his money nor means to collect it in increments. Dead men earn no wages.

It's a good lesson for Peter as well.

Intelligence is the only weapon he needs and as the train rumbles back to Ekaterinburg, Peter envisions a future of corporate-level schemes where shady individuals can't touch him. Running his fingers over the smooth fabric of his new bag, he recalls the picture of Lada, beautiful in the dress from which the material came, beaming at a doomed young man wearing his face.

Peter's outcome, he resolves, will be different.


End file.
